Beyond

2021 Stephen Walker BvLib 629.45 WAL

I was a small child when this history occured. Fascinating, detailed book with a scant half-dozen details oddly omitted

• p003 1955, railway from Moscow to Tashkent, small stop at Tyuratam
• p017 1958 end, project Mercury begun
• p021 1959 April 9 Mercury astronaut first press conference
• p016 1960 October 24 R-16 rocket explosion killed 74 including strategic missile chief Mitrofan Nedelin
• p009 1960 December 24 . . . recovery of 2m diameter 2500 kg capsule with two dogs, 5th flight, barely survived
  • most dog fights failed, 1960 August third flight Belka and Strelka survived
• p016 two further dog tests
• p021 1961 Mercury astronauts in Langley building 60, Glenn and Shepard front runners

• p024 Glenn(1929) 57 WW2 missions, 59 Korea missions, 3 kills, 5 DFCs 1957 fastest cross country, Name That Tune

• p024 Shepard(1923) Navy test pilot, no combat, looped Chesapeake Bay bridge ~1952
• p026 Carpenter(1925) hobby playing guitar
• p004 1961 6000 km2 ellipse Baikonur Cosmodrome ready for Vostok 1
• p004 R-7 rocket type 8K27K 28.4 meters tall 280 tonnes, 3 (RDS-37) to 5 MT (RDS-46) warhead (5300 kg?)
  • 3x more powerful than 118 tonne Atlas . . . US Mk 4 RV with 3.75MT W-38 warhead massed 1840 kg
• p029 Tsentr Podgotovki Kosmonavtov Military Unit 26266, Shchyolkovsky district 41 km NE of Moscow

  • p030 later Zvyozdny Godorok, Star City, near Chkalovsky Air Base

  • named after Valery Chkalov, who flew nonstop from Moscow to Vancouver WA in 1937

• p030 6 cosmonauts, shorter ( < 170cm ) and in 20s, not 30s like Mercury, Vanguard 6

  • Gagarin, Bykovskiy, Nelyubov, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov.

• p030 Vostok simulator in LII Gromov Flight Research Institute in Zhukovsky, 45 km SE of Moscow

• p031 14 more in training, top secret, relatives unaware, wives knew a little

• p038 Gagarin born 1934 in Klushino, Smolensk Oblast 190 km west of Moscow, carpenter father Aleksey, literate mother Anna

• p039 German occupation 1941 October 2, evicted from house, lived in dugout, homeschooled. p040 Younger brother Boris hanged, survived with damage p040 liberated 1943 spring

• p041 moved to Gzhatsk (now Gagarin) ~20 km south

• p041 Gagarin studied foundry work at Saratov technical college

• p041 Road to the Stars by "Yuri Gagarin" 2002 english printing

• p042 Gagarin graduated with top marks in 31/32 subjects, chose jet pilot rather than smelting specialist.
• p042 Titov: Gagarin 'could talk to anybody ... in every situation he would find the key to people'
• p046 Johnson: 'control of space means control of the world'.
• p047 Kennedy: both sides ... explore the stars ... (embedded in a long laundry list of platitudes)
• p048 MIT's Wiesner advised Kennedy to modify or cancel Mercury, then made science advisor
• p050 Shame and Danger: reactions to the Sputniks
• p055 navy Vanguard's TV-3 failure on December 6, 1957
• p057 von Braun's Juno (modified Jupiter-C) launches Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958 / Cover of Time, Feb 17
• p058 May 1958 Sputnik 3, 3000 pound orbiting science laboratory
• p059 US better H-bombs meant smaller rockets, though Saturn was on the drawing board
• p065 Scott Carpenter, relatively inexperienced pilot but superb physical shape.
• p067 philandering Gordon Cooper was (secretly) separated, but reconciled to improve his chances
• p068 Glenn was cheerful and charming
• p071 KC-135 vomit comet, 30 seconds of weightlessness
• p072 1960 Nov 21, Mercury Redstone MR-1 lifted 3.8 inches, escape tower launched itself, Mercury parachutes deployed.

  • modification led to miswired connector separating in wrong order.

• p075 1960 Dec 19, MR-1A mission completely successful

• p076 1959: Yuri Gagarin and wife Valentina at Luostari air base

• p079 2461 pilots considered, 352 candidates interviewed by doctors,134 tested at Moscow aviation hospital
• p084 Gherman Titov secretly told wife Tamara (violating rules)
• p086 First 12 of 20 inducted into Military Unit 26266 in March 1960; younger than US, healthier, inexperienced

• p090 Korolev Chief Designer of OKB-1 long range missiles

• p092 1938 June 27 arrested by Stalin's NKVD, confession extracted, broken jaw, prison, 1938 Kolyma Siberia gold mine

  • 1939 to sharashka to design ricket engines, released in July 1944

• p095 1950 2xV-2 R-2, 1953 750 mi range R-5. 1957 R-7 ICBM
• p097 Korolev left first wive Kseniya and daughter Natalya, married second wife Nina in 1949
• p101 1960 Russians displayed R-7 upper stage in Mexico City, CIA disassembled and copied it overnight
• p105 Gagarin removes shoes before stepping into clean Vostok; Korolev visibly impressed
• p107 1961/01/31 MR02 Subject 65 Ham
• p108 Psychomotor - Light flashes, ham presses lever or is zapped
• p113 Gee-Whizz rocket sled at Holloman
• p117 Alan Shepard on gantry watching Ham's box strapped into Mercury capsule "Spacecraft Number 5" (7 assigned to Shepard)
• p119 blunt bottom capsule attributed to Maxime Faget (probably Eggers), "more slowly(???) and more coolly"
• p120 Glenn joked, "You don't climb into a Mercury capsule, you put it on."
• p120 Soviet throw-weight got them to space first, but delayed technology development
• p121 Hatch closed with 70 bolts 140 minutes before launch
• p123 continuous prep for three weeks, blockhouse 750 feet from pad, Mercury Flight Director Chris Kraft "Flight"

• p129 1154 launch, Thrust controller? stuck, too fast, 4400mph -> 5857mph, Ham heart rate from 94 to 126 beats/min

• p131 Redstone depletes fuel, shuts down half second early, triggers escape tower, 17gees to 156 mile altitude, heart rate 158 bpm
• p131 41 miles too high, 130 miles beyond the recovery ships, 3 hours away. 14.7 gees, Ham heart rate 204 bpm
• p133 splashdown 1212pm, 422 miles out. Capsule let in 800 pounds of water before first helicopter arrived
• p135 von Braun withholds next Redstone until investigation made

• p143 von Braun: all parties involved had to agree they were ready to launch

• p144 Now we had a timid German fouling our plans from the inside
  • Flight: My Life In Mission Control, Chris Kraft autobiography, own.
• p144 George Kistiakowsky ... if anything did go wrong ... end up as the most expensive public funeral in history.
• p148 Feb 22, Glenn, Grissom, and Shepard introduced as first three astronauts by press officer Shorty Powers
• p153 summer 1960, cosmonaut wives told of husband's missions
• p156 Parachute training, up to 65 jumps in 5 weeks, ten day isolation test
• p158 Unmanned test flight end of March as von Braun wanted, then Shepard launch last week in April
  • Webb agreed, reflecting Kennedy's concerns about haste
• p159 Von Braun calculated 2% chance of failure
• p161 Ivan Ivanovich mannequin test 1961 March 9 Vostok 3A capsule p169 recovered Tokmak village

• p166 Shemya monitor station in Aleutian archipelago, close to Kamchatka

• p167 1960 captured 83 MHz video transmission of doc test flights
• p177 Site 10, Leninsky 10,000 inhabitants, Site 2 MIK (Montazhno-Ispytatelnyi Kompleks) assembly building
• p179 location secret, address Number 10 Tashkent 50
• p180 August 28 1957 U2 mission shows R-7 launch pad - May 1960 Francis Gary Powers shootdown
• p181 October 24 1960 R-16 explosion

• p185 March 13 1961 Valentin Bondarenko burned, fire in 40% oxygen test chamber. p188 16 hours to die, 1986 revealed in Izvestia

  • public info might have prevented Apollo 1 fire
• p190 only three spacesuits, leaky emergency dingy, dehumifier , all nominal, 29fail, R-7 third stage fails
• p193 March 24 1961 MR-BD booster development test, nominal, splashdown within 4 miles of expected target, all booster corrections satisfactory

• p202 Ivan lands near Votinsk and Izhevsk

• p206 Kaminin secret diary: survival equipment untested, capsule separation fail, overshot target area 660 km

• p207 March 30 meeting, Konstantin Rudnev meeting in Moscow, approves human flight next, three press releases prepared
• p212 1961 April 3, presidium authorizes Vostok-3A comonaut mission
• p215 1961 April 4, Kennedy approves Bay of Pigs invasion
• p218 Chkalovsky: 6 vanguard cosmonauts leave for launch site, Tamara knows, Valentina learns about upcoming launch
• p227 backup manual control system, locked with three digit code p232 April 7 belated manual descent training
• p245 Fake press release - Baikonur 280 km NW, fake wooden launch pad, also claimed cosmonaut lands in vehicle
• p248 April 9 Titov chosen for second more challenging mission, Gagarin's personality chosen for first
• p253 R-9 second stage malfunction
• p257 April 10 Oleg Ivanovsky, 14 kg Vostok mass reduction by hacking out surplus electronics and systems
• p267 Pad abort - eject, 12 story drop into a net, crawl into bathtub, lowered down by rescue team
  • Gherman Titov laughed to tears "It's good that we did not know this"
• p283 April 12 Technician painted CCCP on Gagarin's white helmet
• p284 if Soviet spaceflight announcement, Kennedy said "Give me the news in the morning"
• p286 bus ride to pad, no mention of peeing on tire
• p291 Gagarin's code name Kedr (Cedar). 30 bolts on hatch. Launch bunker deep underground, 100 meters away
• p294 Ground and tracking ship radars feed Bolshevo missile computation center NII-4
• p299 R-7 suspended on 4 arms over flame pit ... 353 second thIrd stage engine burn
• p301 April 12 09:06 ignition, 32 combustion chambers (20 nozzles), all must simultaneously ignite or possible explosiom
• p302 Gagarin heartrate from 64 to 157 bpm, Poyekhali! (Let's Go!)
• p304 667 seconds to orbit
• p306 119 sec: Staging feeling "like that of being ripped away from the rocket" 154s nose shroud jettison
• p309 09:18 3rd stage shutdown
• p312 NII_4 calculated 327 km apogee, planned 230 km. Wrong landing spot, too slow orbit decay if braking engine failed.
• p314 Yuri's parents Aleksey and Anna in Gzhatsk
• p318 1:35am EST elint to Pierre Salinger
• p321 09:57 last call to Khabarovsk

• p323 Gagarin promoted to Major 10:00 Radio announcer Yuri Levitan

• p326 Tamara Titova tells neigbor Valentina Gagarina
• p328 Yuri's mother Anna Gagarina in Gzhatsk informed by daughter Zoya, takes train to Moscow
• p328 Father informed "Aleksey Ivanovich! ... son in space ... pilot major Gagarin" "Not my son ... a first lieutenant"
• p329 roads impassable, Aleksey heads back home on horse
• p329 2am EST NYTimes calls Salinger
• p330 NBC reporter calls press officer 'Shorty' Powers, "... NASA's reaction to the Russians orbiting a cosmonaut?" "Fuck you, we're asleep here"
• p330 morning headlines SOVIETS PUT MAN IN SPACE, SPOKESMAN SAYS U.S. ASLEEP
• p338 Entry burn cuts off too soon, separation delayed 12 minutes until entry heat

• p339 ablative resin-impregnated asbestos surrounding sphere, 11 to 4 cm thick > 10 gees

• p342 10:42 40km south of Saratov, lost survival pack, 6min problem opening breathing tube
• p345 10:53 landed in freshly plowed field
• p363 Krushchev calls for monumental Moscow celebration April 14
• p366 8am Kennedy wakes to newspaper headlines, later stumbles through press conference
• p372 Teenagers scavenge liferaft, pierce orange capsule, boom!, whole farmyard covered with yellow dye
• p396 Something more was needed. NASA deputy Hugh Dryden said Apollo might cost $40B ($345B 2021)
• p397 April 19, Bay of Pigs was disaster. Kennedy explores Apollo, maybe $20B (actually $28B between 1960 and 1973)
• p400 Alan Shepard suborbital flight
• p403 1961 May 25 Kennedy Moom Speech to Congress
• p409 1966 January 14 age 59 Korolev dies in Moscow hospital. Identity revealed, state funeral January 18, ahes interred in Kremlin wall.
• p410 1961 August 6, Titov 17 orbits in 25 hours
• p413 Gagarin world tour, 1961 July Buckingham palace, 1963 addresses United Nations
• p414 1968 March 27 Gagarin dies in MIG-15 crash near Moscow, unproven rumors of foul play, state funeral March 30

• Daughters Yelena (1959/04/17) and Galina (1961/03/07) still alive

• Brother Boris' daughter Anna immigrated to US in 2002 and married
• not in book: textile worker and parachutist Valentina Tereshkova Vostok 6, 16 June 1963, 48 orbits almost 3 days